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Seventh Day Adventist Church

I was a member of this church for 56 years. I studied its doctrines in great detail and only after I left I realized that this church was a cult in spite of the fact that I knew that the world out there had labelled it as a cult in the past. I did no mind being in a cult because I believed the accusation false. But when I tried to extricate myself from this religion I suddenly began to experience those problems people have when leaving major cults. These problems did not all come all at once. They were like hooks that had their barbes firmly secured in my being. You remove one barb and think you are free only to find that you are still bound by another cord and barb in your being. You take it out and still you are not free and firmly tied to the old rubbish. And it can go on like that for a whole long time. Thus it is impossible to experience the joy of the Gospel even if you understand it because your conscience has been messed up and it needs to recover which may takes years.
Several major points of a Christian cult are as follows:

a. They have a prophet or a charismatic leader whom they follow. In this case a dead prophetess but who has left writings that are supposed to speak right until the second coming of Jesus.
b. They profess to be the only true church whom God has raised up for a special mission. All the other churches are Babylon.
c. It has answers for everything and understands every Bible passage.
d. It focuses on Apocalyptic events and uses fear to control and motivate its members and tells them that everyone out there will one day attack or persecute them for their faith.
e. It has a close knit ready made family with an alternative lifestyle.
f. It has rules and regulations for every aspect of life, i.e, diet, dress, leisure, church, worship, outreach, sex, education, finances, health.
g. As an outflow of the above one tends to withdraw into this family and this lifestyle so that one no longer fits in anywhere in society or has anything in common any more with other Christians.

Right now the SDA church presents an evangelical front and is in the process of a complete face lift. Thus people are being deceived in thinking it is a genuine Christian Church. Those who become members without even knowing that there is a prophet serve as decoys to attract other innocent people into the church. Those who obey the prophet and her writings are considered fanatics by the leadership and by those who are under their influence, while these very same leaders promote these writings because without them the church would no longer have any reason to exist or adhere together and they would be without power and a job. Thus the members who are serious about their faith cannot help but come under the spell of these writings (as soon as they learn of their existence) and begin to obey the prophetess' rules and regulations besides those laid upon them by the church. Then when they get into trouble with the hierarchy because reading those writings the members begin to realize that half of the church and its leaders are not following those writings themselves, they are told that they take her writings out of context and they should follow special seminars in order to rightly understand them. (Which means not to follow her counsel or take it too serious) I reasoned that if they are of God then everyone should obey them. If they are dangerous for a certain group in the church then they cannot be good for others either.

The people who read her writings are the conscientious ones. Those writings were given, according to the prophet, for those who were not obeying the Word of God and to bring them back to that Word. But in actual fact those writings affect those who are willing to obey the Word of God. Those who do not care to obey God care even less about the prophet's writings. So they do not address those who need them but those who do not.
So the truth of the matter is that they attack God's serious followers.

I was one of those who obeyed every rule and I was shunned by the leadership and anyone who believed their false tales about me and my friends. i agree that these writings had a bad influence on me because they made me extremely critical. And no wonder. They were not inspired of God at all and were critical of everyone who did not obey them. Then when I finally recognized that we had been deceived and that Mrs White is not a prophet of God, I got out quickly. then of course I got shunned once more because now I had according to them simply flipped to the other side. One could not expect anything else from a fanatic. I lost a family, both church members and my own literal one, I see the latter of course but cannot speak about my experience because I am on the way to perdition and might contaminate them.

When a sinner comes to Christ he generally comes out of the world into the truth of the gospel. He turns from error to truth.
A member of a cult can come to Christ while being in that cult because the cult often uses truth mixed with error. Then when the person comes to the realization that he has been deceived he wishes to leave error behind.
But black had been white and white black. And in his case, black mixed with white was white. How can he separate black from white? Where can he go? He had believed the world out there to be black. Now he knows that this cannot be true. But because he has his conscience messed up, he cannot readily discern neutral or even good. And even if he can, he fears to join that what is neutral or even good lest he gets deceived once more. Moreover, all those churches were Babylon which means confusion. he sees all there different churches, none of hem offering the comforts of what he had left behind. Where can he go? He cannot possibly join one of them. He does not know how to react in the world out there either. he may even do some odd things simply because he has never learned to discern where the invisible borders lie between sin non sinful practices. Others thought for him and made up all the rules for living. Inside the box of rules the person was safe. When the person perceives that the walls of the box are fake rules which God never gave the person may step outside. But he has no defense against sin or even if he has, he may not be able to enjoy or join the good life out there for fear of contamination. The first thing I did when I stepped outside the box was have my ears pierced. Not because I desperately wanted jewelry, (it was one of those forbidden things) but because I needed to rebel against the rules of the prophet, and because years ago I had once stepped outside the box and had my ears pierced. At that time fear of becoming rejected by God caused me to step back inside quickly I quickly stepped back into the box again and the ears healed up. But now that I stepped outside once more, the first thing that I remembered was having my ears pierced.

What about a person who had actually sinned the last time he had stepped outside the box? He might have fallen into that sin again Simply because that would be the first thing he would remember stepping outside the box again.

Cults are set up by Satan to cause genuine faithful souls to lose faith in the truth altogether. you get so disgusted with the lies you had been made to believe that you may leave truth behind also. Moreover because your lifestyle had been so different from the world or other Christians now that you are changing your life turns totally upside down. It does not feel good. It feels wrong. And the enemy comes and says: You are the deceived one. Not those in the church you left behind. Look at you. You are doing crazy things. You are not happy. You are adopting worldly practices. You mix with wordlings. You cannot find a true church. It is you who is the crazy one. And to those inner voices your only defense is the Word of God. It is written! Anyone who does not have this as a defense becomes an atheist, or goes back in again in due time.

If you want to know more about the subtle influence of the SDA church then I will be more than willing to share some of my experiences. If I am slow in responding you may ask for my e-mail address so that I can answer directly.